Oceola Road roundabout delayed

Lake Country will not be getting a new roundabout on Oceola Road anytime soon.

Construction on the Oceola Road roundabout was set to begin at the end of April, but tenders the district received didn’t meet expectations and the project will wait until 2020.

The roundabout will be located at the Oceola Road and Okanagan Centre Road East intersection.

“The budget allocated for the project is $1,100,000 and the lowest bid received was $1,460,000 – $361,000 over budget,” said Matthew Salmon, public works manager, via email. “The district only received two tenders for the project which is indicative of a busy construction market leading to price volatility.”

The roundabout will be added to the plan for road improvements from Okanagan Centre Road East to Davidson Road in 2020.

“We’re making it a bigger project so hopefully we can attract more competitive bids,” said Greg Buchholz, director of infrastructure with the district.

After discussions with council, the district decided to not move forward on the project.

“We’re just dealing with a really superheated market,” said Buchholz. “We were really excited about moving it forward… if we overspend on one (project), it means that it jeopardizes our ability to deliver on the next one. We only have so much money to work with.”

The Reimche Road Bridge placement project has also come in over the district’s budget when it was tendered for the last two years.

Salmon said infrastructure services plans to self-deliver the project.

“Delivering the project ourselves will put us in the best possible position to manage risk and complete the project on budget while meeting schedules and achieving a quality end product,” he said via email.

“There will be a significant impact on infrastructure services staff capacity because we will be serving as the construction managers but as we are delaying the Oceola Roundabout project sufficient staff time is available in order to replace this critical district asset.”